1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an automatic garage door automatic monitoring and controlling system and more specifically, it relates to an automatic garage door monitoring and controlling system based on the internet of things concept and NFC technology.
2. Description of Related Art
Sometimes, people forget to close their garage door after they leave their house. They may start to remember that they forgot to close their garage door. Unfortunately, they cannot do anything because they have to be physically next to the garage door to close it. Therefore, there is a need for a system which allows users to monitor the garage door status and control the opening and closing of the garage door from anywhere.
Most garage door systems today require mechanical contacts or other more expensive hardwired components for monitoring the door status. Although currently, there are internet based remote garage door monitoring and opening/closing systems, such as LiftMaster openers enabled by MyQ technology and Craftsman's Assurelink, these systems require configuring a standalone device to connect to a network and it is costly to build a configurable interface for such a small device.
There are fundamental differences between this invention and LiftMaster and Craftsman's Assurelink,
a. both Liftmaster and Craftman system use two pieces equipment connecting to the Internet. a wired Internet access box (Liftmaster Internet gateway, and Crafman Internet interface device), and a proprietary wireless communication between the Internet gateway box and the garage door operator. This invention is the first to use existing wifi technology to access the Internet. such design will save the cost of building an Internet gateway box. It is typically a router's cost.
The reason they have to use two pieces equipment is mainly because they have not found a way, such as NFC, to actually configure a standalone system that can access wifi directly.
b. both liftmaster and craftman system don't have status monitoring system. they use their build-in garage operating system to get such information. therefor their system can not be used as a stand alone system. They can only be used for the system that are “enabled” for their technology. While this invented technology described herein can however be used on any existing system, which has a much bigger market.
c. the installation for these other systems could be rather costly. As mentioned on the Internet, it costs roughly $200 if someone were to go through Sears for a Craftman's system installation.
Said invention discussed herein provides not only a none mechanical contact monitoring system, it also provides a standalone monitoring system that can monitor any open closed status of two objects. It does not rely upon any other system to get such information. Therefore it is very different from the Craftman and Liftmaster systems.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and method that provides a platform that removes the need for mechanical contact/expensive hardwired components, reduce the cost of manufacturing the monitoring module, simplify user network configuration resulting in a system that is cheaper to make, easier to install, and easier to use.